049 - Ophelia First Thoughts

I gave a new crew a couple of trial games this week. In a serious breach of my personal "don't use unpainted models" rule, I'm taking Ophelia and the gremlin kin to the Harrogate Icebreaker tournament this weekend. Many of the Harrogate players are retiring their established crews and building new lists for 2012, in a similar way to myself, and so the painting requirement has been relaxed for the tournament (as long as the models are assembled). I've painted 3 of my gremlins so far, so although the majority of my crew will be silver. they'll be green in spirit.

I played two 25ss games on Tuesday, one against Adam using Sonnia, and one against James using Hamelin, and had a 35ss rematch against Adam yesterday night. Three excellent games, and I think as a result I have at least a basic idea of what my models do.

Ophelia vs Sonnia was perhaps the most violent game I've ever played. On one side of the table, Ophelia was in melee with Sonnia and two Witchlings. Sonnia had cast (0) Inferno which causes 3 damage in a pulse at the end of the turn. This killed one of the Witchlings, who detonated for another two damage in another pulse, which then detonated the second Witchling for even more damage! Ophelia was reduced to a pile of smoking boots, and Sonnia herself was weakened badly enough for Rami to pick her off in my next activation.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table, Papa Loco had charged into Pere Ravage. Casting "Take Ya With Me" for 6Dg and killing Pere, who then detonated through "Ka-Blooey" for a 5Dg explosion, which killed Papa Ortega in return, who then went "Boom!" for another big bang! It's a good job that nobody else was stood nearby, as that amount of damage would have floored any model in the game! The crater caused by this series of explosions would easily be visible from space!

Needless to say, there were very few survivors after that had all played out. I think I finished the game with just one model left after finishing off one final Witchling, which was enough to give me a narrow victory.

In my game against Hamelin, I wasn't expecting much, given that I couldn't target Hamelin and that killing rats would be ineffectual. My strategy was Claim Jump, but I'd be unable to establish a presence around the objective that couldn't be easily dispersed by James standing Hamelin on top. I was lucky though, because he played the crew a little too conservatively, and Hamelin didn't really get stuck into the action as much as he could have given that he could attack my models with impunity once Pere Ravage had been Obedienced into blowing himself up. By taking Kill Protoge on Nix as a scheme (the only model I could effectively attack!), I knew I'd be able to get a couple of VPs, and I managed to prevent James' schemes and bring the game to a 2-2 draw.

In the 35ss game I added in some Bayou Gremlins and used what I think will be my crew throughout the tournament on Sunday. The volume of firepower was intimidating, and I managed to shoot down many of Adam's crew before they had change to do anything. Sonnia herself fell when I won a crucial initiative and companioned 3 of my Kin to ping her full of lead. Adam's derisory defense flips didn't help her either to be honest, and so he had to burn almost his entire hand and his whole soulstone cache trying to keep her standing. The final result was Ophelia and Rami standing on the claim marker having obliterated every Guild model that tried to approach. The gremlins had suffered heavy losses, but my weight of numbers meant I had models left at the end of the game.

Worth noting too that we played this game on Adam's new Buildings of Malifaux Terraclips set combined with rubber cobblestone roll mats, and it made for a great setting.

Learning points so far:

Reckless is a difficult ability to manage well. I'm always tempted to push for the extra AP, but after a turn or two it results in a crew where every model is damaged to half Wds, and nobody in the crew has enough Wds to not be concerned by the loss of just one or two.

Ophelia is pretty destructive, and can kill most minions in a single activation if she's willing to burn a soulstone to do it. I need to remember to use her (0) action buffs before attacking though.

Rami scares the enemy, mainly due to his long range, but he isn't especially damaging. If you go for his Dumb Luck trigger, he doesn't really have enough Wds to sustain himself for long afterwards.

Raphael perhaps isn't as bad as I've been led to believe, but maybe I've just been lucky with him. I found Francois to be the least effective of the crew so far. Or perhaps Pere Ravage - I haven't yet worked out how to use him pro-actively.

Young LaCroix are awesome. Plenty of bodies on the table that can all cast Ophelia's damaging spell. It's very painful though if Ophelia dies and you have to remove 4 models from the table!

I need to remember the Bayou Gremlin's "Oops" ability and plan accordingly. In my third game I forgot it even existed (I assure you this was innocent - I'm just not used to there being consequences for my models failing a duel!). I may write this down somewhere, or at least warn my opponent to remind me during the next few games.

Enjoying the crew so far - but I fully expect to get ripped a new one on Sunday when they have to face up to some very experienced players.